Countless others followed, to the point where Reddit has an entire Cucumbers Scaring Cats community. The idea behind these videos is that if you put a cucumber behind a cat, it'll freak out when it sees it.

But experts say that's bad for the cats, with some calling the videos "cruel" and "despicable," National Geographic reports. "If you cause stress to an animal, that's probably not a good thing," animal behaviorist Jill Goldman tells National Geographic.

"If you do it for laughs, it makes me question your humanity." She says startling cats can cause them to injure themselves or become chronically stressed.

But why exactly are cats scared of cucumbers? Goldman says it's simply a natural reaction to seeing an object where they aren't used to seeing it.

A number of animal experts tell Upvoted it could also be because cats associate the cucumbers with snakes, and their brains—like the brains of all mammals—are reportedly predisposed to fear snakes.